Doing it By the Spoonful

[fduop]

Good morning. I glanced over my last post and thought how political and upset I was the day. Well today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US, and just down the street from my home the memorial is being held. It's amazing how polarized things are becoming in this country.

Just yesterday my father-in-law whom I speak to every Sunday morning called to rant and complain about how blacks and whoever else isn't like him (including myself) are hating on the incoming President. My father-in-law, who by the way is a minister, said something else that really stunned me. He asked, were "they" having an MLK Parade in our town? I suppose it was the anger in his voice that really threw me. And for a long time after our "conversation" his words raddled me.

I don't mean to make this a forum for my political feelings and I'm sorry if it's beginning to look like that. But when you suffer like we do with panic and anxiety the less stressers we face the better. While I often speak about giving ourselves a little love and compassion to help us cope with every day situations. Listening to someone who I love rant about us against them really pushes up my stress meter.

I'm really lucky in the fact that I live in a really rural part of the country where I can easily "blend in" with the butt-as$ backward population that apparently lives around me. Still when you feel the walls closing in, you feel the walls closing in. I often wonder when one group of the population gets marginalized, who's going to be next? Compassion and empathy for ourselves and others is the key to living a just and whole life. So why do I feel so worried?

[fduop]

Good morning. Excuse me while I regain my composure last night was a rough one. Not only did I pop-up at 3:30 am as usually, but when I finally got back to sleep I had weird, bad dreams about relatives of mine. Anywho, I'm working on my first cup of decaf coffee and wrestling with a major sinus headache. Other than that, the complete moron someone else voted for is getting the nuclear launch codes in about two and a half hours, yeah!

Today I've resigned myself to working on editing my latest book project, with this being one of the few times I plan to interact with the internet today. I'm sure all those relatives that haunted my dream will be dancing in the streets today. Picking up their white sheets from the dry cleaners and gassing up their crosses for the party.

As you may have figured out, I'm a bit "down in the mouth" and I like to think for good reason. Still despite my foul mood the sun still more or less come out and my first cup of decaf wasn't too bad. Still my worse half wishes it could be pi##ed a little more longer. But my parents for better or for worse taught me to be the better man, even if the leader of our country refuses.

Panic and anxiety always look for a crack in the armor to crawl into. So it's up to us to accept that fact and take steps to work towards doing the best we can. At times these words can seem a bit shallow even to me. But at the moment it's the best I got especially when it feels like the world is pi##ing on my head.

[fduop]

Good morning. Sorry if it looks like I dropped off the radar this weekend, but we had some stormy weather hit our area that stressed me out a bit. At the moment we have cool sunny skies, the broken branches have been picked up and the ground is drying out. Still after the rough Saturday and Sunday, it took all day yesterday to regroup and get back to a degree of normalcy.

One of the things that stressed me out most was watching my oldest freak out over the weather. It seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Although she is much more vocal about her distress than I am, Which as you know I tend to internalize way too much. As you probably know panic breeds panic so we ended up driving over to our youngest daughters brick home to wait out the storm. Needless to say, by the time we got back home I was stressed to the max.

You know, it still amazes me how years ago I had enough internal fortitude to ride stressful situations with calm. Yet over the pass several years, that calm now gives way to downright fear and anxiety. But as you know it's a trade-off when it comes to treatment. You either work really hard on cognitive therapies, or you depend on a drug regimen, or both. When I took Paxil the trade-off was a total lack for emotion but very few stressed out situations. With Fluoxetine it's rough road to start, but the pay-off has been a return to a degree of normalcy with my emotions.

The thing is do what's best for you. My path may not be your path. The point is to walk a path. Don't let living a half life ruin living. Be proactive, and not hiding in a shell, believe me I know.

[fduop]

Good morning. Sorry I've been AWL for a while but I got bogged down in editing my next book and over the weekend I finally caught the bug everyone else had here at home. I finally feel well enough to sit in front of the computer, but honestly I may end up going back to bed.

More than anything else I wanted to let you know what's going on. It's funny how a physical illness can throw your concentration about mental issues to the back burner. I remember during my first magor hospital stay, instead of stressing like a mad man I felt a sense of calm. Now it may have been the drugs, but I like to think that focusing on a different issue may have been the key. Either way at the moment I'm physically down, but my mental focus is clear. Hope you are having a good day and remember to take a step everyday to find myself.

[fduop]

Good morning. After a fairly busy day yesterday I sorta crushed and burned. But I did get some sleep and even wrote what you see below. Usually I'd take this material and file it away to maybe use later. But for whatever reason I thought someone here could use it.

While I work my way back to some degree of normalcy, I envy how the rest the world works. Yesterday as I ventured out to do tasks most find mundane, even boring. I was stressed to the point of exhaustion. By the time I got home I was beat. Looking back on it now it surprises me how little normal everyday pressure I can tolerate. I don't mean to make this sound like some “woe is me” piece. I only want you to get a sense of the weight I and others feel when the pressure valve has been blown so many times the cracks seem to render us unusable.

I wish I could live in the normal work-a-day world, I really do. I often miss the camaraderie and the interaction of being around people. But even after a few hours on normal, I find myself wrapped so tight it's hard to breath. The even sadder part for me is the idea of feeling useless. That by the world's standards all I need to do is “suck it up” and “grow a pair”. So I walk in a sort of twilight world somewhere between the living and the dead. But I do what I can to continue living and growing. Things like the words I produce give me a sense of contributing to the greater good. But the reality is I feel that all I write only works to put a band-aid on the inadequacy that I feel.

So you gotta ask yourself, do I continue on? Can the optimism I work to project shine on or at some point I should stop kidding myself and fall into that black hole of reality? Usually I'm pretty good at wrapping up my thoughts into a nice little bow. But this time I have to ask myself, is this all it going to be? To live a life seemingly half-lived, never satisfied I done all I could. Life and happy endings were not meant to be summed up in a neat package of 400 words. The best I can hope to conclude from the things I'm saying is, we are a work in progress no matter how broken we feel.

[fduop]

Good morning. Well as I have mentioned more times then I care to count, stress and anxiety always find ways to seek up on you. This time it has a bit of a valid reason due to the family getting sick. During this time I haven't felt too good physically, which in turn fires up the anxiety that lives within me.

So I've been waking up at night with my chest pounding feeling anxious. This morning was no different, it took a while to finally calm down so I could begin the day. My mind was going all over the place, thinking about the book, a vacation we had planed, and whatever else my anxious mind could throw at me.

My first though was to ditch whatever plans I had and focus on getting some help. Then I reminded myself that there have been so many days like this in the past. Where I'd stress out about a situation only to realize what I was stressing about wasn't worth the minutes I spent worrying. But since I began typing it's crossed my mind that I should breath deeply and consider my options and not to panic, too much.

It would be so easy to just hide my head under the covers. But for whatever reason, there's some insane spark in me that refuses to give in. I suppose it comes from the idea that at one time things were "normal", and that right now this isn't normal. So for now I'll just sit here and chill (which by the way isn't hard to do in February) and take a critical look at what needs to be done.

[fduop]

Good morning. I was feeling a bit better as the week passed. But as the morning passes, my wife and I are feeling pretty rough. Here where we live the weather's been a bit crazy this Winter, warm one day day and freezing the next. So I'm sitting here with a pounding head and ringing ears, while my poor old wife is hacking away.

Other than that, I feel good mental wise. We went to visit the grandbaby last night so the world is now okay. It's funny how some things can bring you out of a funk, like the hug of a baby or the sound of the ocean. Other than feeling ill these last few days, I have been in a bit of a funk, being anti-social and totally uninspired. For a while I couldn't write a damn thing this week that I liked.

Here's the thing sometimes you just have to drag through whatever it is your feeling. But at some point if you are persist enough you can drag yourself out of your own funk. So hold on and the best you can muster up at the moment. As for myself I think I'm heading back to bed.

[fduop]

Good morning. I could have gotten up and wrote this around 2:30 am my time. But the better Angels had me stick it out and try to rest. Yesterday morning I work-up to a front tire on my truck flat to the ground. Given that I'm not very good at getting off the ground anymore I've been waiting since then for my healthy 26 old-year to decided to put on the spare so I can get the flat tire fixed.

At this point it's looking more and more like I'll be changing a tire. Now a number of years ago, that wouldn't have been a bad thing. But in the messed up shape I'm in from all those years of doing things myself, that's now a nearly impossible task. Putting this into context to what we discuss here, I think you've pretty much figured out I panicked out.

I'm sure most of you remember a point in your life where things like this didn't bother you like they do today. But having a wife that required extra attention and raising four kids, while I wouldn't trade my family for nothing; it took a real troll on me both physically and mentally.

I'm not wanting this to sound like some pity-party piece for myself I just want to be real. I suppose in some situations "suck it up buttercup" is the best advice you can give yourself. But a word of caution, know your limits. As we work to drag through this life we were given remember to do your best to enjoy the things you can. Like a pleasant sunrise, or the sound of birds around the feeder. Find something positive that gives you joy. Because focusing only on the negative won't do anything but rob you of peace.

[viking111]

This thread sounds pretty interesting and good luck to you dealing with social anxiety. I truly understand how difficult it is and I experience it myself, maybe not as severe, but still. One of my recent successes was confronting my worst ever social anxiety fear which was walking up to a girl and asking her out. One hour before I did it, I had the worst DPDR possible. I had a semi panic attack and everything started feeling so weird and things started looking different sizes. In the end, I managed to walk up and actually do it, however I got rejected lol. But I still tried and confronted my worst fear.
Anyways, just a quick thing I wanted to share with you and hope you slowly get better through this exposure therapy.

[fduop]

viking111 that's a great story although the outcome isn't what you hoped. It does my heart good to hear stories of facing one's fears. It's funny how you can go through such anxiety but with a little determination you can make it through the situation. After so many years of living with panic and anxiety you still have to remind yourself that it's okay to get up everyday and it's okay if you fail.

So many times when we fail to overcome our panic we tend to abuse ourselves. In my situation this led to more guilt, more anxiety, and more self-doubt in my abilities. But once you make steps to love the person you are, then you can take the steps to living a normal life. Even now I'm far from doing that, but I try.

This morning I woke up very anxious and stressed and I'm pretty sure it's due to the little vacation my wife and I will be taking next week. Even though the trip is a short car drive away (75 US miles) the idea of leaving the security of our house for an extended period frightens me. But I'm determined to make the trip and although I know I'll be anxious the whole way. I also know the closer I get to our destination the better I'll feel.

So don't be afraid to put down a thought, the idea of hearing from others lets me know my words are not flying in the breeze. So be mindful, work to live one moment at a time, and do your best. It's all you can ask of yourself.